AI Guides › Career & Work
Using AI To Prepare For A Performance Review, Both Sides Of It
By Nigel Guy · 2 min read
Most performance-review prep happens the night before, from memory, which
means it's built on whatever you happen to remember rather than what
actually happened over the past six or twelve months. Managers do the same
thing on their side. Both walk in less prepared than they think.
The rule: prepare from a real record, not from memory — and prepare both
the case you're making and the pushback you'll get, not just the highlight
reel.
The mechanism
If you're the one being reviewed:
- Pull your actual record, not your recollection of it — completed
projects, messages, tickets, whatever exists. Memory over-weights recent
events and under-weights the quiet, steady work from months ago.
- Draft your own summary from that record, organised by impact, not by
chronology. What changed because of your work, specifically.
- Ask for the honest counter-argument. What would a sceptical manager
say is missing or overstated in this draft? Answering that in advance
beats hearing it live for the first time.
- Prepare one real ask, not a vague one — a specific project, a
specific scope change, a specific number, with the reasoning attached.
If you're the one giving the review:
- Do the same record-pull for the person you're reviewing — recency
bias affects managers as much as anyone.
- Draft specific, checkable feedback, not general impressions. "Missed
two deadlines in Q2, both flagged late" is checkable; "needs to manage
time better" is not.
- Prepare the harder feedback first, in draft, so it isn't softened or
avoided live out of discomfort in the moment.
What to skip
Skip using a draft summary as your literal script — read it, absorb it,
speak in your own words. And skip inflating the draft with achievements that
aren't really yours; a review built on an overstated record falls apart
under one honest follow-up question.
Guardrails
- A drafted summary is a starting point for your own memory and judgement,
not a replacement for either — check it against what you actually remember
and correct anything that doesn't ring true.
- This helps you prepare a fair case; it doesn't make the review's outcome
fair on its own. Organisational politics and manager relationships still
matter more than how well-prepared either side is.
- If you're using this to give a review, remember the record you pulled is
a starting point for a conversation, not a verdict to read aloud — leave
room for the other person's context you might be missing.
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